Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a printing apparatus.
Description of the Related Art
Successive overlapped conveyance of sheets has been proposed as a method of improving a printing speed of a printing apparatus. Successive overlapped conveyance is a conveyance method of conveying a plurality of sheets while the trailing edge of a preceding sheet and the leading edge of a succeeding sheet overlap each other when images are printed continuously on them (for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2000-15881). Successive overlapped conveyance can further improve the printing speed as compared with a conveyance method of starting to feed the succeeding sheet after printing of the preceding sheet ends or a conveyance method of conveying sheets continuously while narrowing a gap between them.
As one of conventional printing apparatuses, a printing apparatus having a function of printing on both sides of a sheet has been proposed. When printing on both sides of the sheet, the printing speed is likely to feel slow as a whole because the sheet is printed for each side. In the apparatus of Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2000-15881, no consideration is given to an improvement in the printing speed in printing on both sides of the sheet.